L’Oréal has bought Innovist to claw back momentum in India’s hyper-competitive beauty market. This and more in today’s ETtech Top 5.Also in the letter:■ Nykaa’s big FY30 GMV swing■ IT’s growing AI talent crunch■ Tata’s high-stakes cleanroom bet L’Oréal acquires Innovist in India’s biggest D2C deal L'Oréal India country manager Jacques Lebel (left) and Rohit Chawla, CEO, InnovistL’Oréal SA is snapping up a majority stake in Indian beauty startup Innovist — parent of science-led brands Bare Anatomy, Chemist at Play and Sunscoop — doubling down on one of the world’s fastest-growing personal care markets.Deal details:Financial terms weren’t disclosed, but sources pegged Innovist's value at Rs 4,100 crore.Innovist’s founders will remain minority shareholders and continue to run day-to-day operations.L’Oréal also has a call option to buy the remaining stake at a later date.Why this matters: The deal, the largest in India's direct-to-consumer (D2C) space, lands just as L’Oréal hits turbulence in India. Its India sales growth slowed to about 5% in FY25, down from 14% in FY24. New country manager Jacques Lebel has been tasked with reviving growth and grabbing share in a market where homegrown brands are coming on strong.(L-R) Rohit Chawla, Sifat Khurana and Vimal Bhola, founders, InnovistAbout Innovist: Founded by Rohit Chawla, Sifat Khurana and Vimal Bhola, Innovist is one of India’s fastest-growing beauty startups, with ingredient-focused skincare and haircare brands sold across channels. It clocked revenue of Rs 301 crore in FY25 with net profit of Rs 12.5 crore.Investors make bank: Innovist founders and early backers are expected to rake in manifold gains from this deal.CEO Chawla is expected to earn around Rs 600-700 crore from the sale of a part of his stake.Sauce VC, which first backed Innovist in 2019, is set to make around Rs 450-500 crore in cash, which translates to a roughly 8x return.Another early backer OTP Ventures may generate a 40x return on its initial investment.Dhan parent Raise Securities posts Rs 905 crore revenue, profit down 20% in FY26 Pravin Jadhav, founder, Raise FinancialRaise Securities, parent of trading platform Dhan, reported a jump in FY26 operating income even as its profit after tax fell on the back of higher expenses and a tighter regulatory environment, according to a ratings report by ICRA.Numbers:Net operating income: Up 14% year-on-year to Rs 905 croreProfit after tax: Down 20% to Rs 326 crore. ICRA attributed the increase in operating expenses in FY26 to elevated marketing spend, team expansion, and one-off non-recurring costs.Business metrics:Raise remains heavily dependent on derivatives trading, particularly retail futures and options (F&O), which accounted for around 70% of its net operating income in FY26.Its margin trading facility (MTF) book more than doubled to Rs 505 crore as of March 31.Commodities trading volumes rose about 67% year on year to Rs 3.43 lakh crore during the year.Context:Raise became a unicorn last October after a $120 million funding round led by Hornbill Capital, with participation from MUFG Bank, Beenext, and existing investors.Earlier this month, it announced investment access to US-listed stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) for Indian investors through the GIFT City framework.Nykaa sets $5 billion GMV target, to be achieved by FY30 Nykaa CEO Falguni NayarOmnichannel beauty retailer Nykaa has set an ambitious target of $5 billion gross merchandise value (GMV) across all its businesses by FY30, outlining the roadmap at its annual investor day on Thursday.Numbers game: Nykaa said it has doubled both GMV and revenue over the past three years while remaining profitable, ending FY26 with GMV of about Rs 19,963 crore or around $2.1 billion.It now aims for 2-3x revenue growth and 4-5x Ebitda growth by FY30, up from Rs 750 crore in FY26.Segment breakdown: Nykaa Fashion – which had previously weighed on profitability – is improving, with GMV of Rs 4,954 crore in FY26 and a transacting customer base that grew from 2.5 million to 4.3 million over three years, the company said.Nykaa Beauty has the largest product portfolio in the country and reported a GMV of Rs 2,788 crore in FY26, representing nearly 10x growth over the last six years.Also Read: Nykaa Q4 results: Profit soars 4X YoY to Rs 79 crore; revenue climbs 28%CEO’s take: "Over the years, we have systematically expanded our addressable market, moving into adjacent categories and capturing a larger share of consumer spend. Wellness is the next major opportunity, and one we believe is a natural extension of our journey,” CEO Falguni Nayar said.AI talent gap leaves IT firms scrambling for forward-deployed engineers Indian IT firms are facing a shortage of forward-deployed engineers (FDEs) – professionals who blend technical skills with customer-facing abilities – making it harder to meet AI-heavy client mandates.Why the dearth: Analysts say IT companies are diluting the FDE concept, repurposing consultants and solution architects for the role to boost billing rates. While bundling roles helps them cut costs, clients often don’t get the intended value – they want a builder-level engineer who understands the product inside out and can customise it on-site.Also Read: GCCs outpace IT services in tech hiring, driving AI & cloud talentRising need: Most IT contracts now talk of ‘co-located pods’, ‘embedded engineers’, ‘onsite AI leads’ — all roles that effectively require FDE-type talent, experts told us.Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Chennai dominate India’s AI talent map: Report A recent report pegs Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Chennai as India's top five AI talent hubs.Attracting talent: Together, the five cities account for over a third of the country's AI workforce. And AI is no longer an engineering story – more than half of all AI-enabled roles now sit outside core engineering, spanning leadership, consulting, HR and data science.Tata Electronics onboards Malaysian cleanroom specialist IAQ Group for Dholera fab Tata Electronics has tied up with Malaysian cleanroom specialist IAQ Group for its upcoming 300 mm semiconductor fab in Dholera.Cleanrooms are mission-critical in semiconductor fab, minimising contaminants that can compromise chip precision and performance.Tell me more:IAQ has built cleanrooms for global players such as Texas Instruments and Infineon.Partnering with a specialist like IAQ will help Tata meet stringent fab standards and avoid costly slips in one of the most important parts of any facility, sources told us.Execution issue: Analysts say cleanroom readiness is the key bottleneck for tool installation and fab ramp-up. "Tata’s first fab will need speed, execution certainty, and fast commissioning. Tata’s immediate priority is not just building manufacturing capability but also schedule certainty for tool move-in and ramp-up,” Ashwath Rao, senior analyst at Counterpoint Research, said.Also Read: Tata Electronics aims to be $30 billion business with fab play: CEO & MD Randhir Thakur